Sony has a love-hate relationship with Apple. Apple backed Blu-Ray pretty early, but Sony Music has had major issues with iTunes. Sony is such a multi-headed beast I think it's hard to characterize it as being fierce rivals and/or partners with anyone.

What good is a TV Tuner unless you are getting over the air? Everything else (Cable Satellite) is scrambled.

Not strickly true, in the US analogue cable is not scrambled (apart from premium channels) and cable companies are required to provide HD feeds of local channels in unscambled format (so called ClearQAM). If Apple put a QAM decoder on this thing, then it could at least record HDTV for Network TV off cable (as well as any other unscrambled QAM channels, in my case apart from the locals, GolTV!), as well as basic analogue cable channels.

Its not going to replace a TiVoHD unless it has Cablecard support though, I'll admit.

Not strickly true, in the US analogue cable is not scrambled (apart from premium channels) and cable companies are required to provide HD feeds of local channels in unscambled format (so called ClearQAM). If Apple put a QAM decoder on this thing, then it could at least record HDTV for Network TV off cable (as well as any other unscrambled QAM channels, in my case apart from the locals, GolTV!), as well as basic analogue cable channels.

Its not going to replace a TiVoHD unless it has Cablecard support though, I'll admit.

i'd much rather see a combination of softwares - add SageTV to the AppleTV for tuning needs.

the fact is a dual tuner like the HDHR above is about the same size as the AppleTV - not really a great solution. But if tuner *software* can be integrated into AppleTV (or if Apple releases some kind of SDK for creating 3rd party integration) then the AppleTV simply has to schedule recordings, and the network tuner can record all the data to your desktop computer.

I've been using SageTV for a while now (OTA only) and love it. their mac server and clients work well, and using a pair of HDHDR's i have 4 ATSC tuners at my disposal. I would just love to be able to use the AppleTV as an extender for Sage... I've tried EyeTV as well, and it seems, well, horrid compared to SageTV.

Anyway, i, for one, am really looking forward to an update to AppleTV.

I'll bet there is a Sony-Apple iTunes store deal for movie rentals as well. It is in both companies interest to move this whole thing forward.

After seeing how much Vista gets hosed with the advanced DRM in the new HD movie formats, it makes MUCH more sense to stick a Blu Ray player onto an Apple TV than it does to cripple OS X to enable play back of Blu Ray movies on your basic Mac. Besides, Apple TVs have HDMI outputs, while Macs do not and much of the DRM in the new HD formats relies on HDCP over HDMI.

The problem with Blu-ray is that it would probably come close to doubling the price of the AppleTV - i have yet to see a Blu-ray player/drive for under $250, and all the analysts are still saying that the Blu-ray drive is what makes the PS3 a loss leader.

However, i also seem to remember the AACS implementation in the Blu-ray spec (AACS is *required* for every replicated Blu-ray disk) allows burning of DRM'ed content, etc with very specific allowances in terms of use.

Maybe to succeed in video Apple has to do an AT&T-type exclusive deal with either a cable or satellite TV. That is, design a media device that is as compelling and game-changing as iPhone so that at least one carrier is willing to go exclusive with Apple in the hope of attracting more subscribers. I'd drop Comcast in a heartbeat if DirectTV and Apple did something iPhone-like.

The US government is providing $40 rebates for "qualified" set top boxes so people with older sets that are sans digital tuners can still be used when the broadcasters finally cut over to all digital broadcasts.

If Apple could capitalize on using the $40 rebate to pay for the COGs related to adding a tuner it could be very profitable venture.

Although, I question if this makes sense. Using the governments rebate to pay for an increase in COGs makes sense but why would Apple add a feature that would reduce the consumers likelihood of buying iTunes content. Unless they think that the only real way to make money is in rentals or movie sales. If I have a DVR from Apple I dont need to buy TV shows from them.

Personally I think it would be great to add a tuner as I dont have cable and rely on over-the-air digital broadcasts, iTunes and Netflix. I was tired of paying Comcast $1000 a year for garbage. That being said I am in a very small minority and most persons dont even know you can get HD/Digital broadcasts over-the-air.

Sony has a love-hate relationship with Apple. Apple backed Blu-Ray pretty early, but Sony Music has had major issues with iTunes. Sony is such a multi-headed beast I think it's hard to characterize it as being fierce rivals and/or partners with anyone.

Why oh why I always asked have the Apple stores featured Sony monitors paired with their AppleTVs for demonstration?? Surely Apple could have used another manufacturer other then Sony?? Or a generic one even. Why has Sony been given this free advertising??

Whats the betting we get actual 'real' Apple branded TV's on tuesday? Rather than a box of tricks.

Consumers are pretty dumb, they just want to buy a TV and turn it on, not muck about with extra external boxes and new-fangled connectors.

Especially an empty box where you supposed to keep buying content from Itunes only to make it work. Put a disc drive in it already or let is stream DVD's from our computers while they play. If you can't rip DVD's in iTunes then let us stream them from our computers. Or are we only to spend more $$ for Itunes content?